Roger That
by Wu the Stoic
Summary: Wounded during a mission, Heero finds himself more concerned for Duo's welfare than his own.
The first thing I remembered when I gained consciousness was that I had been shot. Whoever had ordered the hit had made damn sure to hire a professional. One bullet after another had struck me on the side of my right thigh, following along the femur starting just above where the knee bends with six inches between the wounds. He was trying to get to my hip, playing with me as I lunged forward in an effort to get out of his line of fire. I don't know what would have happened if he had shattered my ball and socket joint, but I never had the opportunity to find out. Duo had my back.

 _Duo_.

I forced my eyes open and realized that Quatre was leaning over me, his eyes intense, but concerned.

"Try not to move, Heero, Trowa's cutting out the bullets. You'll be fine," he told me. I gazed at him passively for a few moments before closing my eyes for the split second it would take to turn them to my right. Duo wasn't standing next to me and I couldn't hear his voice.

Why… _why_ did that concern me? Maybe it was much less concern rather than a fleeting sense of gratitude that he had saved my life? Or at least had saved me from much greater harm. In our world, you didn't get attached, that was just foolish. We could all die at any moment and attachments only took more of our hearts when those who we were attached to perished. Also, there was the fact that when it _came_ to those who we were attached to, we tended to put our own lives into greater danger when we tried to protect them, trying foolishly and selfishly to keep them from being snatched away.

War is hell and it's _painful_.

I grimaced as I felt the blade of the knife dig into the wound closest to my hip and I realized that my body was turned slightly to my left. There was a pillow behind my back and I was lying on the kitchen table. We always seemed to do our best surgeries there. I recall back to the time we had to cut a bullet out of Wufei's shoulder. I did the honors while he regarded me with his eyes as black as night. No matter how badly it hurt, he didn't flinch once.

"I've almost got it, Heero, it's being stubborn," Trowa's voice broke through my reverie.

"Well, hurry up," I responded and felt a bit guilty for the way my words seemed to have a bite to them. "I've got a mission report to write up."

Trowa chuckled, no offense taken. That was good. I respect Trowa and I trust him with my life. To purposely offend him was a personal offense to myself.

"That's a lot of blood," Quatre commented. I realized that he was holding my head; perhaps they hadn't assessed me entirely and were worried about a neck injury.

"Mmmm," Trowa agreed. There was a soft tinking sound, and a weird feeling of electricity when Trowa's forceps scraped the bullet still embedded into the bone. "Quatre, get me some more gauze."

"Right."

The hands holding onto either side of my face disappeared, along with their owner, and I was able to cast my gaze around the kitchen once more without the fear of being observed. The tinking sound returned, as did the small bolt of electricity as Trowa fought with the end of the bullet. I couldn't contain my curiosity any longer.

"Where's Duo?"

Trowa's eyes narrowed at my question, his lips drawing into a tight, thin line. He cut his eyes over to Quatre, who was now holding pressure to the wound in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. Quatre lifted his eyes to Trowa and together, they shared a stoic look before Trowa finally spoke.

"He's resting."

I returned my gaze to Quatre, who had worried his lower lip between his teeth. My eyes narrowed, but they decided to focus on their work rather than to elaborate.

"Thank you," Trowa said softly, giving the blond his cue to remove his hands so he could get back to work on me. I let out a heavy sigh and closed my eyes as the tinking sound returned.

"It's like giving birth," Quatre muttered. Trowa grunted in response and I decided to relax and let my mind drift back to the mission. It had been successful and I found myself pleased with that information, however, the niggling feeling of Duo's "resting" was still bothering me. Why did they look at each other like that? What were they hiding?

I opened my eyes to gauge my friends. "How badly is he hurt?"

"Hurt?" Trowa asked, his voice faint with concentration. "Ah, got it," he said. It was an odd feeling watching as he twisted his wrist, his long fingers within the holes of the forceps, the bullet obeying its final command as it was yanked from the bone.

"Finally," Quatre breathed. The final tink was the sound of the slug as it landed into a small metal pan.

"I need to pack the wound and suture it," Trowa said, speaking more to Quatre than to myself. "Then we can let him rest. The other two weren't quite so bad."

My temper, something I prided myself on controlling, could be legendary to people who actually knew me better; that had actually felt the full force of my wrath. Never before, though, had I released it onto people I truly cared about. I had a feeling that these two needed to be tickled with it.

"Yes, hurt," I said, barely restraining the urge to let the words bite harder than they needed to.

Quatre lifted his eyes to Trowa, and once again, they shared that same stoic expression before Trowa turned away to wash his hands at the sink while Quatre got out the material he would pack into the wound. Over time, it would absorb into my body.

"He's… resting," Quatre said again, and once more, he worried his lower lip between his teeth. Were those tears in his eyes?

"Yes, we've established that," I ground out. They were getting me nervous and I hate being nervous. The pained look in their eyes, along with the way they seemed to be hiding something only made the feeling of dread worsen. I watched Quatre once again look to Trowa, and to me, it seemed as if he were silently requesting permission. I lifted my head, glaring at them with narrowed eyes until Trowa cleared his throat.

"He was shot…" the tall man said, his voice seeming to waver.

"Yes, shot," Quatre echoed, turning away from me. I watched his shoulders shake minutely before Trowa eased me back down so he could pack the final wound. I closed my eyes once more as he finished tending it.

"How badly is he hurt."

"Right now," Trowa said, using a firm tone, as if I were a misbehaving child instead of a soldier, "You need to rest and concentrate on getting better."

Those were words I had said to Duo before. I wondered if it had driven him as crazy then, hearing them, as it did to me now, when they were directed at me.

"Where is he?"

"In the living room, we put him on the couch," Quatre said. I noted that this bit of information came to me quicker than the rest.

"In case he needs us," Trowa said as he put in the last stitch. Quatre put gauze over the closed incision and then taped it to my skin.

"I'll get the brace, here, help Heero put these on," Trowa said as he produced a pair of sweat pants that had been cut off at the knees.

* * *

I could only stare in shock as Trowa helped me limp into the living room, the brace holding my injured leg firmly beneath the baggy sweat pants. Duo was lying on the couch wearing nothing more than a pair of sweat shorts that matched mine, his pistol leveled at us and his thumb on the hammer. His eyes were narrowed to slits and it was apparent that he was not amused.

"One word, one snicker, one _giggle_ and I'm taking us all out, you understand?" he growled in a low, ominous voice. It sent a minute shiver down my spine, which traveled down my legs and tingled in a very pleasant way.

I opened my mouth to speak, and then cast my gaze over to Quatre, whose face was like stone. Once again, I noticed the trembling in his shoulders, but I just couldn't understand. Duo was lying on his stomach, and there appeared to be no injuries. His attitude was foul, far more so than I had ever seen and then it hit me. He _had_ been shot. I found my eyes further widening as the sound of the hammer clicked back.

"Yeah, I got shot in the _ass_ , and if I hear the word _dimple_ , we're going down." He waved the gun in a slow arc, making sure it addressed all three of us individually. The realization that Quatre and Trowa were trying to stifle laughter hit me, and suddenly, I too found the situation amusing. Maybe it was the relief knowing that he was okay; it was just a flesh wound, he would be back to normal in no time. His pride, on the other hand, would probably take much longer to heal.

I opened my mouth to speak, but it had suddenly gone dry. Trowa slipped away, back into the kitchen with the excuse that he needed to sanitize the table. Quatre put one hand on my waist, ready to lead me to the recliner so I could rest. After a few long moments of that intense, violently violet gaze, I finally found my voice.

"Roger that."


End file.
